Prayer: Molding a Generation for God

“We are constantly on a stretch, if not on a strain, to devise new methods, new plans, new organizations, to advance the church and secure enlargement and efficiency for the Gospel. This trend of the day has a tendency to lose sight of the man, or sink the man in the plan or organization. God’s plan is to make much of the man, far more of him than of anything else, for men are God’s methods. The church is looking for better methods, whereas God is looking for better men. This vital, urgent truth is one that this age of machinery is apt to forget and the forgetting of it is as baneful in the work of God as would be the striking of the sun from his sphere. What the church needs to day is not more machinery, or better; not new organizations or more novel methods, but men whom the Holy Ghost can use. The Holy Ghost does not flow through methods but through men. He does not come on machinery but on men. He does not anoint plans but men – men of prayer. It is not great talents, not great learning, nor great preachers that God needs, but men great in holiness; great in faith; great in love; great in fidelity; great for God. These men can mold a whole generation for God.”

– E.M. Bounds (1835-1913), Power Through Prayer